[vtk-developers] Additional math functionality

[tom fogal]

 <436BD0AE.6080008 at kitware.com>Brad King writes:
>Philippe P. Pebay wrote:
>> if we could not split the math tools into a few classes, e.g.,:
>> 
>> 1. algebra (vector and tensor manipulation and operators over such, 
>> combinatorics)
>> 2. solvers (including linear solvers)
>> 3. vtkPolynomialSystem (that allows symbolic manipulation of 
>> polynomials, and systems
>> of such -- which of course includes manipulating linear systems)
>> 4. and a general vtkMath where we would put useful stuff that cannot be 
>> attached to anything else.
>[snip]
>> Will Schroeder wrote:
>>>
>>> There has been a request by several VTK developers to move some math 
>>> functionality into VTK (mainly polynomial root solvers). We are 
>>> talking several thousand lines of code. Of course we could just cram 
>>> it into vtkMath, take the ITK approach and include a math library, or 
>>> create new math classes, etc. At this point I am looking for opinions.
>
>This kind of support could quickly turn into a whole numerics library. 
>I suggest we take the ITK approach of pulling in an existing library 
>such as vnl.

Sorry I've not been following this list lately, but I've only good
things to say about the GNU scientific library ("GSL").

I think licensing might preclude it being incorporated, but eventually
there comes a point when one has to wonder how much equation solving
code is relevant to a visualization library.  Maybe users should be
searching for external libraries instead of doing everything in VTK.

Just my $0.01 ;P

-tom